1
Corrected transcript of evidence taken before
The Select Committee on the European Union
Sub-Committee C (External Affairs)
Inquiry on
Evidence Session No. 17 Heard in Public Questions 253 - 263
2.35 pm
Witness: Rt Hon David Lidington MP
Baroness Billingham
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury
Baroness Coussins
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
Baroness Henig
Lord Jopling
Lord Lamont of Lerwick
Lord Maclennan of Rogart
Lord Radice
Earl of Sandwich
Lord Trimble
Baroness Young of Hornsey
________________
Examination of Witness
Rt Hon David Lidington MP, Minister for Europe, Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Q253 The Chairman: Good afternoon, Minister, and thank you very much for coming. We have an unusually large audience on this occasion. As I think you are aware, this is the final session of our inquiry into EU-Russia relations, and I think it is very appropriate, therefore, to have a UK Minister giving evidence. As you know too, it is all on the record and so forth. We have sent you a number of questions; I am sure there will be supplementaries.
Before I start, could I thank you very much for your courtesy in warning me that you might be taken away to do an urgent Question or a Statement? I am delighted that you have not been, but it was very good of you to alert me to that possibility.
To begin, what lessons regarding the EU’s relationship with Russia do you feel have been learnt from the events of the past year? At both a UK and EU level, what steps have been taken since the crisis in Ukraine to ensure that the EU—by which I mean the Member States as well as the institutions—has the analytical capacity to understand Russia and engage in constructive dialogue in the future? How is the dialogue between the EU and Russia being managed ahead of the implementation of the Association Agreement with Ukraine? That is quite a mouthful.
Mr Lidington: Thank you, Lord Chairman. I should say that I am being supported this afternoon by two officials: Mr Keith Shannon on my right and Mr Jason Rheinberg on my left.
Your questions raise a number of different but linked questions, and let me deal with the strategic question first. I think that, as this year has gone on, there has been a significant shift in how the British Government and, I think, how European Governments generally have seen Russia. If you had posed that question to me this time in 2013, I would have said that the Government regarded Russia as an awkward, difficult partner but a potential partner still, and that we were seeing movement, through their membership of the WTO and prospective membership of the OECD, to the integration of Russia into a rules-based international system.
I think that now the feeling is that Russia cannot be considered a potential strategic partner to the EU, that Russia’s actions have fundamentally challenged the foundations of international order and the rule of law by violating the territorial integrity and sovereignty of one of its neighbours, and that the actions of the Russian government suggest that they see the EU as a strategic adversary rather than as a potential partner.
In terms of the internal response within the Government, within the Foreign and Commonwealth Office we have strengthened considerably the Eastern Europe and Central Asia Directorate, increasing the number of senior staff and deputy directors, and expanding the desk teams working on both Ukraine and Russia, and that is a mixture of both permanent additions to the complement and short-term reinforcements. Other government departments have also increased their staff resource for dealing with Russia and Ukraine.
At EU level, the handover from the Barroso Commission to the Juncker Commission has complicated matters. A lot of staff—particularly cabinets—have moved on. A number of Directors-General and Deputy Directors-General too have been on the move. The Commission has established a support group for Ukraine—it did so back in April—to try to provide a central focus for the Commission’s work on Ukraine, and the EU and the Government of Ukraine have put together a European agenda for reform. I think it is also fair to say, however, that a fair amount more needs to be done in analysis and strategic thinking at EU level, and we very much look to see the new officers in the EU pursue that.
As far as Russia is concerned, the relationship has been very difficult. There has been a dialogue with Russia on the Association Agreement and the free trade agreement with Ukraine. That was initiated as soon as the Russian government indicated that they had serious concerns about those treaties. There have been several rounds of discussions, and there is a commitment at the European level for that to continue, but I think that our fundamental problem is that the Russian efforts to destabilise Ukraine have not abated—they are continuing—and it is hard to see how there can be a constructive way forward while that continues.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. Just one small supplementary question. My impression—and, I think, the impression of all of us—is that, not only in the British Foreign Office but in the foreign offices of some of the other major member states, there is not—how can I put it?—quite the same level of expertise about Russia now as there was at the time of the Cold War, and that the level of expertise about Russia as distinct from trading arrangements and technical matters in the European institutions is probably not as great as the present situation demands. In other words, there has been something of a knowledge-analysis gap, as I say not just here but elsewhere. Would you agree with that?
Mr Lidington: I do rather agree with that. That is in no way to criticise the expertise or the commitment of the officials who were at the Russia desks when the crisis struck at the start of this year. If I look back, I think it is fair to say that pretty well every western Government had made various assumptions about the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years and, indeed, the early indications in Mr Putin’s first term as President, showing that Russia wanted integration into a global rules-based system, and steps such as G8—Russia’s participation continues in, for example, the dialogue of the six with Iran on its nuclear programme—showed that Russia was serious about being an international partner.
It is also simply a matter of fact that by the beginning of 2014 there were very few officials in any government department or agency, here or elsewhere, who had personal professional experience of working with the old Soviet Union before it collapsed. That is nobody’s fault; it is reality, due to the lapse of time. I think there has been a recognition this year that we needed to refocus in the light of the challenge and in the refusal of Russia to take what Secretary Kerry described as the off-ramp solution in the early weeks and months, and de-escalate at that stage.
Q254 Lord Maclennan of Rogart: When we were in Brussels, Minister, we heard from DG Trade that they had not been in contact, when they were negotiating with Ukraine about the implications of this politically, with other Directors-General, and it seemed that the Commission was not focusing on the possible outcomes. Do you think that now that we have a new Commission—or new heads of Commission—we may have a rather better understanding across departmental divisions?
Mr Lidington: DG Trade, of course, has responsibility for the international trade negotiations in particular, but the Association Agreements and the DCFTA, which goes more broadly than what we traditionally regard as trade matters—the deep and comprehensive free trade agreement touches on things like human rights as well—were considered elsewhere in the Commission and by the External Action Service, and then by member states through the normal Brussels machinery involving permanent representatives, and by Ministers as well. The reality is that as soon as the Russian government expressed serious concerns about the compatibility of the free trade agreement between the EU and Ukraine with existing CIS free trade arrangements, a dialogue was begun, but Russia left it very late in the day. These agreements had started negotiation back in 2007 under Yushchenko. They were continued by President Yanukovych, who, after all, is not renowned as somebody who is hostile towards Russia, and it was only late in the autumn or early winter 2013 that the Russians really did start to flag up a concern. At that point, dialogue was offered to them. I will be honest with Lord Maclennan: I think this was more a pretext than a genuine concern that there was a serious threat to Russia’s economic interests.
Lord Trimble: Minister, I take the view in the present circumstances that giving help to the victim is probably more important than sanctions on the wrongdoer. The question, then, is: what is the level of EU support currently being offered to Ukraine? Is this sufficient? How great is the threat of default, which we see is being mentioned currently in the Ukraine? Going forward into the future, how would not just EU support but support generally be sustained, and what are the priority areas for that support and for reform in Ukraine?
Mr Lidington: The EU, historically and now, is the biggest international donor to Ukraine. In March this year, an EU support package of €11 billion was announced and, as I have said, a support group was established a month later, in April, to provide a focal point and structure for this. European money and a certain amount of bilateral assistance is being directed primarily at trying to equip Ukraine to carry through the economic, political and administrative reforms that it urgently needs to do. That covers a wide range of things, from advice on how to raise their phytosanitary standards so that they can take full advantage of the export opportunities that would arise from entering into force of the deep and comprehensive free trade agreement, through to judicial reform and institutional means of fighting corruption. It is not inventing something new, in a sense, because this is what western European countries did in offering help to central Europe 25 years ago, so it is very much the same looking-to-assist knowhow.
Of course, there is also a need for Ukraine to seek external help in financing the Government’s operations. A $17 billion IMF package was agreed earlier this year. I think everybody accepts that what has happened since then, and the fact that Russian intervention has meant that Donbass industrial production is not delivering to the figures that were assumed when the IMF package was agreed, means that there will have to be another look at financing. The IMF was out in Kiev last week; they have not reported and I do not want to venture an opinion until we have seen exactly what the IMF reports, but I would say to the Committee that it would not surprise me if there is a need to add to the financing package that was agreed earlier in the year.
Lord Trimble: It is likely that an addition to that package is going to be really substantial, because these comparatively small figures may have seemed appropriate at the beginning of the year, before the crisis really developed, but when you see what has happened and its impact on Ukraine—
Mr Lidington: I would not, at this stage, want to speculate about the figures. I think I would like to see what the IMF reports.
Lord Radice: We went to Berlin to speak to a number of people there, and one impression at least that I got from it was that if we are going to seriously help Ukraine, it will have to be for the long term. This is not something where we can say, “We have done it now”; it has to go on and on. Are we prepared to do that?
Mr Lidington: I can only speak for the present British Government, but I would say yes. It is very much in the interests of this country that Ukraine is able to modernise its economy and reform its political, judicial and administrative systems, and become much more like what we regard as a mainstream European polity.
Let me move away from the moral ground about human rights and the democratic wishes of the people of Ukraine, which they have expressed in elections twice this year, for a President and for a Parliament, and let us just look at British economic opportunities. A wealthier Ukraine could become again the breadbasket for Europe, and there could be marvellous investment opportunities for the agricultural and food processing sector, for retailing and for energy investment, which would be a win for Ukraine in that it would allow it to develop and modernise its economy, and a win for British and other western companies that have the proven expertise to enable Ukraine to do that in the course of doing their own successful business.
Lord Jopling: I was in Washington last week with a presentation on Ukraine, and this issue was raised about support to Ukraine. The point was made by our interlocutor from the United States Government that we need to push a hell of a lot more money, as Lord Trimble suggested, and he made the point that it ought to be done in a comparable way to what we did to help Georgia after the Russian incursions a few years ago into Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Do you know off the top of your head how our support for Ukraine compares with what we did a year or two ago for Georgia and, if you do not, will you let us know?
Mr Lidington: I think the easiest thing is to write with that detail, but certainly we would want to look at Georgia. We would also want to look at what was done for Poland, the Visegrád countries and the Baltic states when they established their independence. Your point about the long-term commitment is absolutely vital. There is no point in doing this for two years and expecting all problems to be solved. For Ukraine to overcome the problems that it faces is going to be quite a long haul.
Q255 The Chairman: We had very recently the collapse of the South Stream pipeline, and looking a little further ahead we can see the end of the current Russia-Ukraine gas deal. Is there anything that you would like to say about either of those?
Mr Lidington: On the Russia-Ukraine gas deal, I am pleased that that deal was negotiated, and I do not think it is a great secret that Chancellor Merkel in particular was instrumental in bringing the two sides together. An agreement on gas was something that both the Russian and the Ukrainian Governments wanted to see happen, and the German Chancellor was able to engage in some successful bridge-building. We just have to hope the bridge is robust and not fragile. On South Stream, our view has always been sceptical, because South Stream was not going to provide European countries with an additional source of energy; it was simply going to enable Russian gas to be transported without crossing Ukrainian territory. From Ukraine’s point of view, they would have lost out on the fees that they would be able to get for gas transiting their territory, but it would still be the same Russian gas from the same sources as before. What Gazprom and the Russian authorities were angling for was an exemption from the requirements of the Commission’s Third Energy Package, and that is something which the British Government resolutely opposed. I am not going to shed tears for the demise of South Stream, but there are important things that the European Union and Member States need to do to improve their energy security, which include transmission systems like the trans-Anatolian pipeline from Azerbaijan into Europe but also developing all the indigenous energy sources that are available to European countries, whether that is renewables, nuclear or unconventional gas resources.
Q256 Baroness Coussins: How would you assess the impact of the EU’s sanctions policy so far? Are there any improvements that you would like to see, or are there any ways in which you think their enforcement could be made more consistent across the EU? Finally, do you think there have been any negative consequences of the current sanctions regime for either the EU as a whole or the UK in particular?
Mr Lidington: To take the second point first, on enforcement I have not seen any reports of other EU Member States applying sanctions inconsistently or engaging in sanctions-busting. There are some concerns about third countries back-filling by selling into the Russian market in place of European exports, and we use diplomatic means to try to dissuade those countries from so doing. Sanctions are having a tangible impact upon Russia. They are an additional burden on top of the grievous structural weaknesses that Russia already faces in its economy and that have been laid bare somewhat by the recent collapse in global crude oil prices. But if we look at what has been happening in Russia, the rouble has continued to hit new historic lows against sterling, the euro and the US dollar. For the first time in five years, headline inflation in Russia is now outstripping wage inflation. Their central bank has revised its growth forecasts downwards to near zero for both the current and next quarter. Borrowing costs in Russia have been pushed up by sanctions and they are effectively locked out of western financial markets, and investment capital is now very wary about going into Russia, because there is an obvious fear on an investor’s part that either there might be retaliatory action by the Russian authorities or, if the aggression in Ukraine were to continue, sanctions could be ratcheted up and new investments fall foul of future strengthening of sanctions. They are having an impact, but I would be misleading the Committee if I said that it was yet bringing about a change of heart on the part of Mr Putin as regards Ukraine. We know that some very senior people inside the Russian system believe that this is taking Russia in the wrong direction—that this is doing harm to Russia. We believe there is some dissension within the Russian elite.
Finally, I was asked about negative impact. In terms of the United Kingdom, yes, there has been an impact on particular companies and particular sectors, not so much from the sanctions themselves as from Russia’s retaliatory ban on the import of food and drink from EU countries. In Scotland in particular, mackerel interests have suffered, and dairying. I was asked a question by one of the Northern Ireland MPs about this last week in the Commons. It tends to be food and drink, and some of the companies that perhaps had intended to invest further in Russia have deferred those investment decisions. At the European level, the Germans have probably taken a bigger hit than the United Kingdom has, and the Baltic states—Lithuania in particular, and Poland, which are traditionally significant exporters of food stuffs into Russia—have obviously seen Russian retaliation hit their exports significantly.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Would the United Kingdom have preferred stronger sanctions than were finally agreed? Do you think we could move into other areas? For example, we might put pressure on different sectors, such as sport, particularly football, because that would really hurt a lot of people and perhaps put extra pressure on Mr Putin and Russia.
Mr Lidington: I am not attracted by the idea of the Government issuing edicts to sportsmen and sportswomen or sports clubs for two reasons. Politically, they have tended to be counterproductive in the past, and it is a bit of an interference in where people can go and earn a living as individuals. Also, I think people-to-people contact is generally a good thing, and I think sporting contacts tend to fall on that side. Ultimately, we have a good principle in the UK that it is for sporting authorities to take this kind of decision rather than for Governments. There has been contingency work on both sides of the Atlantic about the potential further strengthening of sanctions. We—the EU and the United States—have been looking at further targeted sectoral sanctions in the event of things deteriorating further. Contingency plans have been worked up. Would we have liked them to go further? I do not think it is a secret that the UK this year has been on what I might term the hawkish side of the sanctions debate, but it was important that we got consensus on this, both within the EU and across the Atlantic. The Prime Minister has personally worked very hard to make sure the US and EU positions have been as consistent as the different executive systems on the two sides of the Atlantic make possible.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: We have had evidence from two former distinguished ambassadors to Russia that they considered sanctions to be a mistake for the West. It does seem that we are cutting off the possibility of dialogue by this means, and we are hoping that there will be sufficient internal ructions to enable that talk to take place, but if it is simply a matter of Putin backing down, it is really something that one cannot predict. I find it surprising that two distinguished members of the Foreign Office who have had long experience in Russia would find themselves counter to what the Government are doing at the moment. Can you explain this?
Mr Lidington: The Foreign Office is accustomed to employing independent-minded people who give Ministers in all governments the benefit of their advice, even if that means challenging what Ministers would prefer to do. That does not surprise me. The FCO is full of very independent-minded and able people, and retired diplomats are entitled to their opinion and to express it publicly. I do not think that this country or the EU could have simply sat back and ignored what happened, particularly from the annexation of Crimea onwards.
Sanctions were not the first step. I remember sitting around the Council table in Brussels in January this year, where we were wondering what was going to happen. There were rumours that perhaps there would be some sort of Russian intervention in Crimea. The mood at that point was a reluctance to believe that Russia would take the most hard-line of the options available to it. There was a faith in the diplomatic approach. John Kerry in particular, although he spoke for allies in Europe and the US, was focused upon the off-ramp solution—a diplomatic way for President Putin to back down without losing face—but that approach was rejected. Russia formally annexed Crimea within days of sending its troops in to occupy the peninsula. That act of annexation was an outright breach of the UN charter; it was a breach of the Helsinki Final Act; it was a breach not just of the Budapest memorandum but of treaties that Russia herself had concluded with Ukraine and others at the time of and since the break-up of the Soviet Union. I do not think we could have just said, “This is business as normal”, particularly when at the back of our minds there was the precedent of Georgia in 2008, after which we had allowed business to go back to normal and thought that that was an exception to the trend in Russian politics.
I do not think we were wrong; nor do I think that sanctions have been ineffective, as I have said, or that we have ceased to offer dialogue. Our Prime Minister, Chancellor Merkel, President Hollande, or Barroso when in office, have been talking to the Russians and offering more talks. What has been lacking is, first of all, a willingness of the Russians to talk to the Ukrainians at all. They only began doing that after Poroshenko was elected. They refused to talk to acting President Turchynov or Yatsenyuk when he was Prime Minister before the presidential election. Even now there are talks, but we are not seeing the delivery on the ground of the things that Russia has agreed to do during those conversations.
The Chairman: Colleagues, we are making very slow progress. Minister that is not your fault; we are asking too many questions. I have two supplementaries, from Lord Sandwich and Lady Billingham, but I would ask colleagues to remember that we have a lot more questions to get through.
Earl of Sandwich: Minister, still on sanctions, what sort of pressure have you had from the Germans? We were rather surprised that the German business community is going along with sanctions, and even asking for the strengthening of sanctions. This must be rather different from the atmosphere here.
Mr Lidington: Every country round the table wants to see sanctions that are proportionate to what Russia has done and are effective, but every country also quite legitimately has an eye on its own interests. The view that we have taken and argued for is that the pain caused by sanctions should be roughly balanced in how it is spread across European countries. It is for German Ministers to speak on this, but as I observe it, from looking at reports from our ambassador in Berlin, the views in Germany differ depending on who you speak to. There will be some people both in the Bundestag and in business who will argue the whole approach of sanctions is wrong, and there are others who take the view that is similar to the one that I have been expressing.
Baroness Billingham: Briefly, this Committee, and particularly the delegation that went to Brussels, was surprised and astonished at the apparent unawareness, if there were such a phrase, of what was actually happening. It appeared that our ambassadors who we spoke to did not foresee more clearly what was going to happen, whereas other people, certainly the press, had been speculating for weeks on what was happening. Now, why were we so slow in picking up the mood music from Russia, which was that Putin was gearing up to annex other countries?
Mr Lidington: The timescale of this was that in the autumn of 2013 a Ukrainian President and Government who were friendly towards Russia decided that they wanted to go ahead with the Association Agreement and trade agreement with the EU. I remember being in Kiev in October 2013 and being told by President Yanukovych’s then Prime Minister, Mr Azarov, that the President had decided they were going to go ahead and all obstacles needed to be swept away so Ukraine could sign on the dotted line at the Vilnius summit in November last year. The debate then was whether President Yanukovych really would follow through. There was, for example, a huge debate about whether he would bring himself to release Yulia Tymoshenko from prison in order to be able to sign this agreement with the EU. Russia intervened very late in the day. President Yanukovych was basically summoned to two long meetings with President Putin, and then two weeks out from Vilnius President Yanukovych changed his mind. At that point the EU view was, “Well, that is regrettable, but, okay, that has happened, and perhaps it is force majeure, but we look forward. Perhaps a future Ukrainian Government may change its mind, but that is their decision”. Then, of course, the Ukrainian people themselves rose up and protested about that change of policy, and there followed the events of January and February last year and President Yanukovych’s decision to leave the country the day after an agreement had been negotiated by the Polish, German and French Foreign Ministers with him and the opposition leaders. Ukraine was left with no Government, with a deal having been made but not implemented, and the Head of State having left the country.
It was after those events that you then started to have Russian intervention in Crimea. One can look back and say, “We should have expected Putin to be more aggressive at the time than we did expect him to be”. I think people were judging Putin in the light of what had appeared to be a trajectory on the part of Russian policy over a couple of decades. There were a lot of very wise and experienced people who thought that he would stop short of annexation—that he would announce that he wanted a special status for Crimea or he wanted a new treaty on the Russian naval base in Sevastopol. Certainly an outright annexation was at the very hard end of what was assessed as the potential range of possibilities, and it is the one he went for almost immediately. This was not just in Brussels; I think if you look throughout North America too, you would find the same sort of view was taken there.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Are you saying that President Yanukovych could have stayed on and that he was not really forced out, which from Russian perceptions was seen as a sort of coup? Do you really believe he could have stayed on?
Mr Lidington: Yes. Certainly, in London we were assuming the situation in Kiev was going to be very troubled, because you had these vast numbers of people in the streets and in the Maidan. You had the most appalling scenes where protestors had been fired upon by people who it was apparent were very well trained riflemen. You could tell that by where the wounds were in the bodies. There was intense enmity within Ukraine, but our view was that the best approach at that stage would be to find a way to patch things together to take Ukraine through to the presidential election that was due in 2015, when the people of Ukraine could take a decision. I do not think anybody was expecting Yanukovych simply to leave the country. Certainly, when I have talked to some of the Foreign Ministers who were out there in Kiev, it was not what they had expected when they negotiated that deal on 21 February.
Q257 Baroness Young of Hornsey: Minister, what is your assessment of the long-term viability and effectiveness of the sanctions policy as it would relate to a long-term strategy from the EU towards Russia? In some of your earlier remarks, I guess you were talking more about the short and the medium term when you were talking about how Russia could no longer be considered a potential partner with the EU, and as long as the current situation held that would obviously make things really difficult. What about the long term? Could you also say what kind of steps Russia would have to take in order for the sanctions to be eased, and the extent to which you feel that these steps have been clearly communicated? Related to all that, how do we get past the current stand-off, and is it all about Russia having to do something, or is it all about the EU? What do both sides need to do in order to get past this moment?
Mr Lidington: Nobody wants to see sanctions remain in place longer than necessary, and while I am sceptical that Russia could be considered a potential strategic partner, we trade freely with all sorts of countries that we do not regard as strategic partners and with whose Governments we have very profound differences. What is needed is a de-escalation starting with the full implementation of the Minsk agreements. That would be a first step. Those agreements provide for a complete and genuine ceasefire. They require the withdrawal from Ukraine of all Russian military personnel and equipment, and crucially the restoration of security at the Russo-Ukrainian border. Once that happened, the OSCE could bring its monitors in to make sure that the border was being observed and that border procedures were being respected. At the moment, you just have this flow of people and material crossing from Russia to reinforce the separatists in Donetsk and Luhansk. It is about implementing agreements that respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. If that happens, that might open up the possibility that President Poroshenko has talked about of a dialogue between Russia and Ukraine, and I think the EU approach would very much be governed by the direction that any such potential dialogue took.
Baroness Young of Hornsey: That is not exactly a “wait and see”, but there is no immediate long-term vision you can give of what the relationship between the EU and Russia might be?
Mr Lidington: The relationship that I would like to see between the EU and Russia would be warmer and more friendly than it is now, but we are very much in Russian hands on that. We cannot aspire to that sort of relationship if we have Russia openly trying to destabilise Ukraine, and not only that but still sitting on Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which we recognise as part of Georgia, and still maintaining troops in Transnistria and dabbling in Moldovan politics. We have seen for some weeks now the matter of an Estonian official kidnapped from Estonian territory by Russian forces and still held in Moscow without any evidence brought against him; a Lithuanian fishing boat seized on the high seas, towed to Murmansk, and still held in Murmansk; and the interruption of gas flows from Russia into Poland, Hungary and Slovakia, allegedly for technical reasons, but I think a political signal was intended there. We have a pattern of action during 2014 that I think rightly causes us to be suspicious and cautious. I wish that were not so, but I think that is the reality with which we are dealing.
Baroness Young of Hornsey: Finally, on sanctions, earlier you mentioned a dialogue between the EU and the US on the issue. Do you think it is important for the sanctions regimes to be synchronised?
Mr Lidington: It is important that they are synchronised as closely as possible. There are inevitable differences that reflect for the most part the differences in the systems of Government. The President of the US can do certain things by executive order for which the EU requires a more elaborate process. It is also a reality that the EU has a much more important trade relationship with Russia than the United States. It is something like more than 10 times larger than the US-Russia relationship. The figures I have are that EU-Russia trade is $417 billion a year, and US-Russia trade is only $38 billion a year.
Lord Radice: I want to go on to another question, but you did not mention the incursion of Russian aeroplanes into the airspace of a number of Member States. For example, I think there was one today, was there not, or yesterday, in Sweden? What do you think about that?
Mr Lidington: That tactic has never completely gone away, but we are seeing a pattern that is reminiscent of the Cold War period. The Swedes also very publicly announced that they were searching for a third country’s submarine that had gone into their waters. They never found it, so it cannot be proved that it was a Russian one. But, yes, that kind of pressure, that testing, is now a fact of life and, again, affects the conclusions we draw about Russia’s intentions.
Q258 Lord Radice: To what extent is there a common EU strategy towards Russia? We are told that President Putin was quite surprised that sanctions were introduced and have been upheld in the way that they have been. Do you have confidence there is a long-term position of the EU behind the sanctions?
Mr Lidington: Because of events, and because the breach of international law that was involved was so fundamental, it has called forth a much stronger and more united response from the European Union than many expected. I think too, though, that there is not yet a sufficiently coherent long-term EU strategy towards Russia. Russia is the most important global relationship to the EU in many ways, because it is next door. The EU talks about strategic relationships with the United States, China and India. Because of the challenges she has posed and because of her proximity, Russia is in some senses more important than any of those to Europe. The differences in interest and approach between Member States and the problems that there have been in developing a genuinely comprehensive approach to external policy, because of turf wars between the Commission and the External Action Service, have contributed to our strategic European approach to Russia not being as strong as I would like it to be.
This is not a criticism of Cathy Ashton, because she, first of all, had other things that she was dealing with, but the turf war that I have described was a fact of life with which she had to grapple in the past few years. Federica Mogherini has said that she regards putting together a consistent, coherent strategy towards Russia as being of absolute prime importance. I am pretty confident that Donald Tusk, as the new President of the European Council, will take the same view, and I think the Heads of Government in the European Council will want to be very hands-on in making sure that they are happy with what comes up from the Brussels machine.
Baroness Billingham: This is a follow-up to the previous question. It is about strategy. To what extent has the UK cancelled or suspended meetings with Russia at ministerial or official level? Can we be told?
Mr Lidington: We have had a policy where we have basically said, “No business as usual with Russia”, so ministerial contact has been limited to the things that we were able to talk to Russia about, primarily about Ukraine, or where important British interests were involved, whether that is trade or diplomatic. For example, the work with Russia on Iran has continued, and rightfully so, and we have sought, so far without success, to find a way to agree with Russia over Syria and Middle East policy. At the moment, the positions are very different. We have postponed the regular 2+2 defence and Foreign Ministers’ dialogue with Russia, the Lord Mayor’s visit to Moscow and the integovernmental steering committee trade talks, and we cancelled a VIP visit to the Sochi Paralympics. The UK-Russia Year of Culture has gone ahead, and I think again that was right—that is people-to-people contact—but ministerial participation was withdrawn from that. I have suspended my strategic dialogue with the Russian deputy Foreign Minister. The Prime Minister has spoken to President Putin I think eight times this year, most recently at the G20, and the Foreign Secretary, taking William Hague and Philip Hammond together, has spoken to Sergei Lavrov I think five times in 2014. Those contacts have been continued, but they have focused on Ukraine.
Q259 Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Can I say that I accept entirely that Russia is behaving illegally and Mr Putin is not telling the truth about what is happening in eastern Ukraine? But one wonders what his motive is, and it is conceivable—I put it no higher than that—or possible he may have a feeling of insecurity that, although unjustified, we have to take into account. We had a distinguished former ambassador to Russia who told us about promises being made within his hearing about the non-enlargement of NATO. That happened nevertheless, and was accepted. But two breaking points were particularly stressed by some witnesses. One was in 2007, when Putin was in Munich, and he warned that whatever had happened with NATO expansion, Georgia was a step too far, and the warning signals, according to this argument, were put up in 2007 in Munich and again in 2008 after the Bucharest summit, when the accession to NATO of Ukraine was openly put on the agenda. Now, you may feel that any feeling of insecurity he has is quite unjustified, but is it not conceivable that it exists?
Mr Lidington: I am quite prepared to believe that the feeling of insecurity exists. I think the two questions then are: to what extent is that feeling of insecurity justified objectively, and what legitimately can be done to address such a feeling? The problem we have with President Putin’s approach is that he starts with the view that the break-up of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy that has happened in international relations in his lifetime. To judge from his actions this year, and looking back at 2008 in the light of 2014, he appears to wish to re-establish a world in which countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union are reduced to the status of vassal states of Russia, where their freedom to choose their path internationally, and to some extent internally, is determined by Russia. It is not just Europe; we have had comments this year to the effect that Kazakhstan was not a real country. Perhaps most perniciously, we have had the enunciation of a doctrine that argues that Russia is entitled to intervene anywhere in the world it chooses if that is purportedly a defence of Russian speakers or Russian citizens in that country—a statement of policy that I think was calculated to sow fear in the three Baltic republics in particular.
I would say that there can be a way forward. After all, both acting President Turchynov and now President Poroshenko have said that they do not regard NATO membership as a live issue. It would in any case take a very long time for Ukraine ever to get to the standards that would be needed to qualify for NATO membership, but I think we have to accept that we are starting from a situation where we recognise Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia as sovereign independent countries, those I mentioned with vigorous democratic political parties within them as well, that are entitled to choose their own course. Yes, a sensible Ukrainian leader will want to have a decent relationship with Moscow. I would agree with that point. If ways can be found to explain to Russia that free trade agreements within the CIS are compatible with a free trade agreement with the European Union, that sort of reassurance can be given, but one has to start with Russia being prepared to recognise the integrity and the sovereignty of its neighbours, and the problem that we have at the moment is that that recognition is not forthcoming.
The Chairman: Lord Jopling has a supplementary, but perhaps I could just interpose one as well. What you say I quite understand, but the reverse is also true. If you are living next door to Russia, you ought to take account of Russian interests as well.
Mr Lidington: If I look at what President Poroshenko has said, both before and since his election, he has made it clear that he wants to have a proper conversation with President Putin about de-escalation and the future of their relationship. If we go back to January and February, there was never any challenge to the treaty that allowed the Russian Black Sea fleet to be stationed at Sevastopol. There was no risk to those Russian interests in Crimea at that time.
Lord Lamont of Lerwick: Was there not a statement made that the lease on the base might not be extended, as had happened under Yanukovych?
Mr Lidington: The lease on the base was always enforced. Certainly what we and other countries were saying to the Ukrainians immediately after the change of government in February last year was, “You are going to need to have a decent relationship with Russia. You can give some assurances”. Things like the early attempt to get a language law through the Rada that discriminated against Russians got nowhere. Actually, President Turchynov vetoed it anyway, so it got nowhere. It was a foolish, hot-headed manoeuvre at the time, but, frankly, had there been a Russian government who were prepared to de-escalate, the opportunity was there to do so, and that was the message Kerry, Merkel and others were taking to Moscow repeatedly in the early months of this year.
Whenever I have talked to the leaders of countries that border Russia, they all accept that they need to have an important relationship with Russia. If I just depart from Ukraine for a bit, when the current Georgian government were first elected they made a great point of saying that they were going to improve their relationship with Russia. They appointed a special envoy mission, Abashidze, whose role was to promote a better bilateral relationship between Georgia and Russia. They have made desperately slow and disappointing progress, and that has not been from any lack of will on the Georgian side. They thought that, with Mr Saakashvili having been defeated and left office, there would be an improvement, and the Russians have proved much harder in how they have treated Georgia than the current Georgian government had originally expected.
Lord Jopling: I want to go back to the question that Lord Lamont put to you about undertakings that a former ambassador had heard with regard to the possibility of the expansion of NATO and the EU into the former Soviet Union territories. As I understand it, this was purely a verbal statement made by I think two people, if not more, at the time of the break-up of the Soviet Union. As I understand it, it was using words like, “There are no plans to expand into these countries”, but since then, of course, those countries have come to NATO and the EU and asked to join in. I hope I am right in thinking that there was no formal agreement of this sort. It was merely a verbal statement of the position at the time. As we come to write our report, I think it is rather important we know whether the view I have tried to explain is the view which the British Government think is correct.
Mr Lidington: I will write to the Committee about the historic point there, because I do not have that information to hand. The position of the Government and NATO now is that of the NATO open-door policy that was enunciated at the Bucharest summit, which says that it is open to any country to apply to join NATO, but there is a demanding job of work to be done to carry out the reforms that are needed—and they are not just reforms to the operation of the military, of course—to meet the standard for NATO membership, and then there has to be a consensus among all existing allies about the admission of any new member. Ukraine has proved itself to be a good partner for both NATO and the European Union. For example, they have contributed a naval vessel to the Indian Ocean operations against Somali piracy. That sort of co-operation is in everybody’s interest and no threat at all to Russia. I go back to the point that these are independent, sovereign democracies that are entitled to choose their own course of action. Any country needs to take account of its broader interests. One of the messages that I just wish the Russian Government would comprehend is their actions in Eastern Ukraine are making the Ukrainian population more hostile to Russia now than they were at the beginning of 2014, and we saw that in the elections to the Rada.
Q260 Earl of Sandwich: We have touched on the Eastern Partnership. Those are the countries that concern us, but there is going to be a review of the Neighbourhood Policy generally. How do we address this subject now? Are we reacting to Russia’s intentions, or are we saying, “It is time we moved on. We have a created a new kind of partnership”. What is your take on that?
Mr Lidington: There was going to be a need to review the Neighbourhood Policy anyway, because had there not been the Russian intervention in Ukraine we would still be in the situation in which the six eastern partners were choosing to go in disparate directions, as regards their relationship with the European Union. If you look at Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia, for example, their Governments quite openly aspire to closer integration with the European Union through association and free trade agreements. Belarus since the crackdown on the opposition and civil society is clearly not so inclined. Armenia would like a better relationship with the EU, but feels very dependent on Russia for its security needs in particular. Azerbaijan wants a good commercial relationship with the European Union but I do not think it, at the moment at any rate, sees itself as wishing for the sort of formal Association Agreement that some of the other countries seek. I think we need an Eastern Partnership that is not just one size fits all—that recognises the offer needs to be different for each of those six countries.
Earl of Sandwich: But that suggests to me there is no policy at all and we have decided we have to deal with each country independently.
Mr Lidington: You can have an umbrella of the Eastern Partnership, because the approach from the EU is going to be about providing for market liberalisation, free trade and the approximation and convergence of commercial production standards, and it is about political reform, human rights, rule of law and an independent judiciary, which are good things in themselves but which also, I very strongly believe, will attract more inward investment into those Eastern European countries that very much need it.
Baroness Coussins: Would you be in favour of exploratory discussions between the EU and the Eurasian Economic Union as proposed by both Mr Putin and Mrs Merkel?
Mr Lidington: I think it is a bit early for that. I do not want to rush ahead with that, because the Eurasian Union itself is still not a finished entity. For example, the Kazakhs have not devolved trade powers to the organisation. The three countries already in the Eurasian Union still have internal tariff differences. There are Russian controls on the import of Belarusian fruit and veg, and of the Eurasian Union members only Russian is in the WTO. Quite how effective that grouping would be is unclear. There is already a conversation between the EU and the Eurasian Customs Union at technical level to provide advice and expertise and to discuss the functions of the Eurasian Union. If we saw the delivery of the agreements made at Minsk and we started to see a de-escalation, again perhaps a development of this EU-Eurasian Union relationship at political level would be possible as well, but I think we are going to be cautious for the time being until we see some de-escalation on the ground of this ghastly situation in Eastern Ukraine.
The Chairman: Before I turn to Lady Henig, could I come back to the question Lord Sandwich asked and ask you if you think there is a need for greater clarity and transparency of what the Eastern Partnership involves and, in particular, how it differs from EU accession?
Mr Lidington: There is a need for greater clarity and transparency, and that is what I hope and expect to come out of the review of the Neighbourhood Policy that is going on at the moment. The review is also going to cover the EU’s approach to the southern neighbourhood—the countries of the Arab world. I agree with that point. There needs to be more focus on using EU resource to drive reform through civil society and the private sector, including SMEs, in those countries, but it should be hard-headed reform, where a country gets more out of the EU in terms of partnership funding if it is showing that it is committed to reform and delivering those reforms on the ground. I think we should move away from a model where we are almost thinking there should be a slice for every country, regardless of what they are actually doing. We should be about rewarding commitment there. It is not the same as membership. It is not incompatible with membership either. EU membership is open under the treaty to any European country that wants to join and can meet the accession criteria. If I can put it this way, none of the Eastern Partnership countries is going to be able to reach those standards to qualify for EU membership for a long time into the future. Even with the western Balkan countries, we are looking into the 2020s, in some cases the late 2020s, before I would expect them even to be at the point where perhaps membership could be agreed.
Q261 Baroness Henig: Minister, earlier I think you referred to Russia as the most significant external power with whom the EU has to deal, or words to that effect. You were emphasising its importance. One of the reasons for that is obviously the fact that there is a shared neighbourhood that the EU and Russia have to negotiate. Could you say in what ways you think relations with Russia need to be structured in that shared neighbourhood, and whether there is a role for more regional fora to promote dialogue between EU Member States, countries in the neighbourhood and Russia?
Mr Lidington: There are a number of European and Eurasian fora already—the OSCE, the Council of Europe and so on—where you can talk about issues of common interest. My red line would be that we must not get sucked into an approach where the EU is sitting down with Russia and deciding in 18th-century-great-power pattern the fate of another country. Those countries themselves have to be equal participants at any table. Eastern Partnership countries have a sovereign right to choose the direction in which they travel. Again, if we see de-escalation—if we see moves towards an enduring political deal between Russia and Ukraine—other possibilities may be open. There is already, for example, a group of EU countries that work closely together on a Black Sea and Danube strategy. Is there a case for a Black Sea conversation, or a Caspian Sea conversation among countries that border the Caspian Sea? Perhaps. I do not want to rule anything in or anything out, but the red line I described is for me the critical starting point here.
Baroness Henig: Can I say that that was a view that came out very strongly when we were in Berlin? The Germans felt even more absolutely that that was a red line that they certainly would not want to cross.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Regarding the future, we have heard from some of our witnesses that we should continue to engage with Russia on non-political issues. Others have suggested that the EU should continue to enforce its rules and values, such as anti-corruption legislation and human rights. In what areas do you consider it might be profitable to engage with Russia in the future?
Mr Lidington: We are maintaining contact with Russia at political level on things like Iran, counterterrorism, Afghanistan post-ISAF and counter-narcotics policy, and of course at the UN our representation is dealing with their Russian opposite numbers every week. Those contacts do continue, and we also do engage with Russia still, despite the current difficulties, on the non-political issues. Our ambassador in Moscow attended the Victory Day celebrations in May this year. That came to my desk. I thought it was right that he should do that, because that shared memory of World War 2 is important; it is important to honour those who fought and, given the significance of that conflict in the minds of Russian people, I felt it important that the British Government were seen, through our ambassador’s presence, to be honouring that sacrifice. The Russian ambassador came to Remembrance Day commemorations here in London. There are ceremonies around the country to present the Ushakov medals to Arctic convoy veterans, and we have tried to provide MoD representation at each of those. That sort of contact continues. For the future, subject to de-escalation, we would like to see EU and national-level talks on energy, trade and investment with Russia. But we would also like to see the resumption of our formal annual human rights dialogue with Russia, which I think provides the structural means in which to discuss those important subjects with Russia. We keep a close watch on what is happening in Russia at the moment regarding human rights and civil society organisations, because another alarming trend in Russia at the moment is the increasing restrictions under which those organisations have to operate.
Lord Maclennan of Rogart: Do you think there are areas where we could increase our contact positively and not bang them over the head, like education, culture or science?
Mr Lidington: Those contacts do continue, and I think that people-to-people, free-institution-to-free-institution contact should go ahead, but as has happened with the Year of Culture, it is going to be very difficult for the Government to encourage those activities or participate in them in the absence of a de-escalation of the crisis in Ukraine and the implementation of the Minsk agreements.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock: Russian witnesses have suggested that we, the EU, snubbed Putin when he raised longer-term strategic issues like visa liberalisation and what they call the Lisbon to Vladivostok free trade area. I would prefer it to be called the Stornoway to Vladivostok free trade area, by the way. Is it true that we did that, and has that really caused him to be more negative and unhelpful towards us?
Mr Lidington: These things were discussed twice yearly between the EU and Russia until January 2014, when they were stopped as a result of what happened in Crimea. Visa liberalisation and the Eurasian trade area were up for discussion there, and I have to say that these were both Russian requests, but it was never very clear, from the Russian side, exactly how they saw visa liberalisation working in practice, or what convergence on a free trade area would mean, and whether we were just talking about tariffs, or we were talking about common standards or mutual recognition of standards, and, if so, how that would be achieved. Those talks did not get anywhere. Certainly, if I think back to our bilateral discussions with Russia over the last four years, and things like aviation and sales of British beef into Russia, it was pretty hard, painstaking negotiation on each of those dossiers. The Russians, in my experience, were very transactional and tough in their approach. They do not believe in something for nothing.
One word of warning is the Russians have a history of forum-shopping. They are, in my knowledge of the history of Russia, trying to have various conversations with European countries about Eurasian security from which the United States and Canada are shut out. We had, for example, President Medvedev, when he was in office, and his suggestion of a Eurasian security treaty, and we have had other suggestions over the years of that kind. I think we are right to be wary of that sort of initiative.
Q262 Lord Jopling: Minister, can we go a little further afield and just talk about some of the issues where we seem to have common interests with Russia? I am thinking of the Iranian nuclear programme, the need to combat ISIL, and the joint need to deal with terrorism. Could you say something about how those talks and relationships are developing, and to what extent they have been harmed by the events of this year?
Mr Lidington: It has not been so much a direct impact as the fact that the bandwidth for discussions both at national level and EU level with Russia has been taken up with the need to address Ukraine as a matter of priority, so there has been less time and opportunity to address those other subjects. If you look at what has happened, the E3+3 Iran talks have seen Russia playing a constructive role. They similarly adopted a positive approach during the ISIL conference in Paris earlier this year. It is no secret that there is a difference in that Russia would tend to see the Assad regime as an ally against ISIL, and the British Government would differ from them in that. Those relationships and mechanisms, however, are working satisfactorily, and if the Russians have seen that there are issues where co‑operation can help them and serve their interests too, then the evidence is that they are prepared to do it. It would be an exaggeration to say that we have gone back to a Cold War situation.
Lord Jopling: Do you see a prospect of improving those particular relationships?
Mr Lidington: I would like to say yes. It is inevitable that the chilliness at the top political level that has developed this year makes it more difficult to develop those other relationships further without some positive movement as regards Ukraine, but we very much want all these other different relationships to continue. We are certainly not going to try to weaken them.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: I just want to return to the question that you have been asked quite often about contact, and where and how we keep contact. You have said that the Year of Culture went ahead but without ministerial involvement. Witnesses have told us that there is a need for the EU to separate its approach to the Russian Government and to Russian citizens. How can the UK and other Member States build a relationship beyond the current regime and support civil society in Russia? Interestingly, one of the things that came out when we were in Germany was that our attitude and our response here to the Sochi Games went down very badly. I know there was the whole complication of the anti-gay laws and stuff like that, but how do we navigate in order to keep the Russian people onboard, which we do not seem to be doing at the moment?
Mr Lidington: We are maintaining, particularly through the embassy in Moscow but not just through that, contact with human rights defenders and NGOs in Russia. Our diplomats often attend their events to provide moral support and an independent witness as to what is going on. We have to acknowledge that there is a significant body of opinion in Russia that supports President Putin, will have a conservative view of social policy and will not necessarily be of one mind with the human rights groups that we will see in Moscow or St Petersburg.
We fund, through the embassy, a number of projects to support human rights, civil society and democracy—it is about £1.1 million in the current financial year—and a large element of that is focused on programmes in the North Caucasus, where we have an active human rights programme. We focus in particular on the five priority areas: civil society and democracy, freedom of expression, stability in the North Caucasus, the rule of law, and equality and non-discrimination. We monitor quite rigorously the effectiveness of all projects that we fund. The partners have to produce quarterly progress reports, so we can end funding if we think that a project is ineffective, although we do not have to do this often.
We have faced a problem with the introduction of the foreign agents law, and some of our previous project partners have decided not to apply for UK funding because of that, although they are a minority. We get good applications for funding from a variety of human rights NGOs and obviously we have to respect the decisions of those who decide that it is better to be without foreign funding, because of the problems that they would otherwise encounter. The fact is that there has been a very marked deterioration in the human rights situation inside Russia. We have seen the media become much less diverse.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: Yes, I was going to ask you about that.
Mr Lidington: The operating environment for NGOs and human rights defenders is more difficult. I was in Basel for the OSCE ministerial meeting on the third of this month, and I met three Russian NGOs who were over there for a parallel NGO OSCE conference. They were very explicit about the difficulties that they are facing and the harassment that they are having to put up with, but they still continue. We work with allies. For example, in relation to the trial that is now going on involving Sakharov’s Memorial organisation, we have had British diplomats at that trial so that we can observe in detail what is going on. We have done the same with various LGBT foreign agent hearings in St Petersburg. The power that we have is limited, and I think the Committee will understand that, but we will keep up the active interest and the moral support that we offer, as well as the programme funding.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: That is true across the EU, is it, for other countries, or is it horses for courses?
Mr Lidington: We do this through our national programme. Each country will have its own arrangements. I do not know the detail, but given the importance of the Stiftungs and the generous funding that the Stiftungs give I should think that the Germans will be active. Of course, there are long-standing links between some of Russia’s neighbours in the EU and human rights organisations in Russian territory.
Baroness Bonham-Carter of Yarnbury: You mentioned the media. Another thing we picked up very strongly in Germany was their concern about the manipulation of their own media through the blogosphere and so on, which I do not think we have quite so much, though we do have this new channel, whatever it is called.
Mr Lidington: Yes, Russia Today. We are aware of this, and I think what has become clear during this year is that there is an extremely well-organised Russian information or propaganda campaign that involves, at one end of the spectrum, Russian-language broadcasts and journals not just to eastern Ukraine but to Moldova, into the Russian‑speaking areas of Georgia, and Latvia and Estonia as well, but also involves presenting a coherent and strongly expressed message to western news networks so that carrying that as half of the story is seen to be part of discharging the duty of impartiality. I think the networks have probably got better during the course of the year at challenging that Russian narrative, and I think MH17 was a massive shock that caused people to pause and just think, particularly given the original Russian denials of any separatist involvement.
We have given, and continue to give, a lot of thought to what we do both at European and at national level about this. One cannot set up an alternative broadcaster inside Russia. I think that one of the hopes for the future will be that the internet and mobile telephony, and economic change, will start to have an impact on Russian society in the way that we are seeing in so many other parts of the world too.
Q263 Lord Radice: The assumption behind drawing a distinction between President Putin on the one hand and the Russian people on the other is basically a rather pessimistic one, which is that we are not going to get very much from President Putin. We might have to sit him out, as it were. There was an interesting article in Prospect by Chrystia Freeland, who says that Putin is influenced not by the sort of things that we have been discussing—indeed, a number of our witnesses have said this as well—but he is very concerned about his own internal position, and much of what has happened is influenced by his view of his own position, and that therefore he is not particularly impressed by anything that we are going to say to him. I hope this is not true. I hope that is not the case, but I think that it is quite a dangerous situation if it is the case, but what is your view about this? In a sense, we have not really faced up to what is the motive force behind President Putin.
Mr Lidington: My observation is that President Putin is a Russian nationalist who wants to restore the greatness of Russia after what he sees as humiliation under some of his predecessors, who has said publicly that he regards the collapse of the Soviet Union as the most appalling tragedy, and who has interpreted restoring Russian greatness not as addressing the structural weaknesses of Russian economy and putting Russia on a path to long-term prosperity but in terms of trying to subjugate countries that were once part of the USSR. Of course, the Russian system is not quite like our own—you will not pick up the Sunday newspaper in Russia and find sources close to various Government Ministers saying contradictory things on various occasions—so working out what may be being said inside the upper reaches of the Russian elite is very difficult. It is a very opaque system.
We do know, as I have said, that sanctions have caused some disquiet amongst members of the elite—and “disquiet” is putting it mildly. There are people in Russia who served in previous Russian Administrations who are out of power at the moment but who have a different view about the best future for their country and for the Russian people. We may have to sit it out, but not only for President Putin. I do not simply assume that whoever succeeds President Putin will be more amenable. We will have to wait and see and hope, and do what we can to demonstrate to Russia that the alternative course of action, involving respect for its neighbours’ sovereignty and a constructive relationship with Europe and the Euro-Atlantic world is profoundly in the best interests of the Russian people themselves, because that is most likely to provide the path for greater clarity, political stability and security.
Lord Trimble: Minister, you have mentioned the Russia Today channel, which has a base, I suppose you could call it, here in London, not a million miles away from where we are at the moment. You also mentioned how our own media feel that their obligation to be impartial compels them to speak to Russia Today from time to time, so you might like to point out to them that the Ukrainians have followed suit and have launched a channel called Ukraine Today and established their own little outpost in London, not a million miles away from where Russia Today is. You might like to draw attention to that as well.
Mr Lidington: We have been giving some advice to the Ukrainians about strategic communications.
Lord Trimble: Good. I am delighted to hear it.
The Chairman: Minister, thank you very much. We thought you were going to be with us very briefly because of business elsewhere. In the event, this has been the longest session we have had, and we are all very grateful to you for the frankness and openness with which you have dealt with these questions. Thank you very much indeed.
Mr Lidington: Thank you.